Left 4 Death
by Zoey Overbeck
Summary: Maintaining her grip on the Hunter as the infected surrounding her stumbled back from the brutal assault, Aelita held it above her head and bugled triumphantly, not caring if the rain washed more of the infected blood all over her.


Liar!

This story is obviously rated M due to content. Left 4 Dead and Code Lyoko belong to Valve and Moonscoop, respectively. I just got tired of seeing that most M-rated fanfictions on Code Lyoko were lemons instead of actual violent action.

Edit 6/27/11: This story has been slightly revised to have eliminated some of the errors I recently have noticed on my Nook.

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><p>The rapidly darkening sky was a deep crimson red, with swirls of bright orange and yellow serving as highlights to the otherwise dark and dreary background, mirroring the squalid conditions on Earth due to the outbreak of the Green Flu virus and the havoc that followed soon afterwards. Ominous looking clouds were gathering in the distance, slowly moving towards France. The air was already filled with the metallic scent of blood, having come from the death of innocent people and the infected alike. The odor mixed unpleasantly with rotting corpses and bile. Corpses littered the street, lying limp and unmoving, and their faces white as snow. Some of them had whole parts of their body missing, one of them even having the lower half of him ripped away. His intestines covered the street; it was obvious that he had attempted to crawl away from his attackers before he succumbed to his wounds and presumably died of blood loss. A Tank could easily do that to a person- punch them far away with one swing of their over-muscled arms and then beat their victims to a pulp.<p>

A solitary figure presently made its way past the destruction, expertly navigating through the blocked streets of Paris. An M-16 Assault Rifle was slung on her back. Brown straps criss-crossed its front, holding the means of mass collateral damage, namely a pipe bomb, a hunting knife, and several magazines for the Assault Rifle. She turned her head slightly as her ears registered movement other than the sound of her feet walking over the rubble. Thin lips slid into a frown, and the form immediately took shelter against the side of a partially destroyed building, her back leaning against the wall. Her fingers twitched ever so slightly, and reached for her primary tool of killing.

Bright green eyes peered around the building's corner, narrowed in concentration. Her breathing hitched as one of those … things… wandered into view, stumbling around and vomiting bile over the littered street. On the previously vacant sidewalk, oil barrels were crammed with old, yellowed newspapers and various pieces of wood that served as fuel for the fire that greedily consumed it. Her hands were sore from holding two heavy weapons, unused to having to hold dual pistols. Nervously biting her lip, she extended one arm in the infected human's direction and closed her eyes, turning her head away.

A roar issued from the infected's throat as it spotted the uninfected female, awkward stumbling walk giving way to a fast paced run as it dashed towards her. Three bangs issued from her gun, and the former human slumped to the ground, dead. Blood from its wounds gushed all over the pavement, staining the concrete a bright red color. Some of the crimson liquid splashed onto the young teenager's sweatshirt and dark blue denim jeans, joining the dark red dots already on the material. The seventeen year old Aelita curiously opened her eyes, shakily recovering from her attack.

It wasn't the first time she had done this- she had killed at least a hundred infected humans that had stood in her way before. The problem was the mental trauma that resulted in killing someone, even if they were infected and didn't have a problem with spilling your blood all over Paris. If this was a movie, most of the people in the audience would be screaming at the characters on screen to stop sniveling and get on with the action, already accustomed to the weak female characters Hollywood portrayed them as.

The pink-haired girl slowly shook her head. '_If only they knew' _she thought. Every scary movie Odd had persuaded her to see had at least one female character that was the weakling of the group. In real life, those types of people would never survive being in the epicenter of a zombie apocalypse. But still, nobody could be completely isolated emotionally from the tragic explosion of the Green Flu virus into the world, especially those who've had to witness their loved ones turn into mindless zombies or even had to _kill _their friends and family. However, some degree of aloofness was required in order to survive the zombie apocalypse- you couldn't exactly just break down in a street crawling with infected and cry.

Aelita gingerly stepped over the corpse and continued towards Kadic Academy, searching for her friends. Kadic Academy was supposed to be a safe haven from the infection as well as a military stronghold. Graffiti scrawled on the walls of previous safe houses encouraged future occupants to proceed to the rumored evacuation points, served as messages to loved ones, and provided vital information.

It had been almost three weeks since the Green Flu virus erupted into existence in America, devastating countless cities along its path of destruction. Supposedly, the American military had created the virus and were planning to use it as a biological weapon when a strain was accidentally introduced to the public sector. It soon got out of hand as it began to rapidly infect individuals, the virus itself mutating on a daily basis. The Civil Emergency and Defense Agency had been called upon to handle the infection. Once it became apparent that CEDA was unable to both contain the infection from further spreading and evacuate uninfected individuals at the same time, the American military stepped in.

The military's bombing raids did little to stop the Green Flu from spreading to other parts of America and soon, the rest of the world. The virus's nature was unpredictable- sometimes it was airborne, other times it was not. Sometimes humans turned within hours or days, other times they turned within minutes, seconds even. The effects on children were too much for the young humans to handle- they cried in pain, shouting and convulsing, and clawing at their faces while they screamed for relief from their suffering. The virus brutally killed them within minutes, their youthful faces forever frozen into expressions of torture and horror while their heavily soiled bodies were feasted upon by the mindless infected mobs or crushed underfoot by the same hordes in their primal pursuit for fresher meat, preferably within live uninfected humans.

Just a week and a half ago, it had made its permanent mark on France; the virus having been carried by Americans fleeing to other countries for their own safety. Little did they know that they were secretly sealing their own doom by infecting the people that surrounded them, which in turn spread the virus to friends and family, and so on. The infection rampantly spread through the crowded streets of France, especially hitting hard on the major cities where hundreds of thousands of people lived and thrived. Now, the bruised and battered world was merely a husk of itself.

The living dead roamed the streets freely, and the whole world became a figurative hell. Everything that humans had worked for was gone, burned in the panic caused by the outbreak that swept through France. Not too long after the initial appearance of the virus did the French military respond by a hail of missiles that cleansed most of the French population in the major cities, whether they were infected or not. Fire razed the air from the countless burning buildings, the tall columns of smoke forming black pillars in the polluted sky. It was evening now, and the light from the sun was fading fast; it would be harder to fight in the night time, with the smoke blocking the moon's luminescent rays from reaching the earth and the fact that there was hardly any running electricity.

Fallen power lines lazily lay on the asphalt, mostly hidden under the enormous pile of rubble that now caked almost every visible surface of the ground. Aelita was careful to avoid them; if they were still coursing with electrical current and she stepped on one, she would obviously be electrocuted immediately. Other visible hazards were buildings that looked as if they were about to collapse at any second, or any of those cars that flashed a red light in their interior. Common sense dictated that she had to stay away from anything that could make a loud, high-pitched noise, or anything that could attract the wrong kind of attention in general. Her hands briefly brushed against the pipe bomb safely tucked in a compartment attached to her belt, comforted by the presence of the small metal contraption.

Rooms within buildings, dubbed as 'safe houses', were getting harder and harder to find. Almost all of them held weapons and ammunition, as well as health packs and some provisions left by the military for the few immune humans to use while they waited out the infection. Aelita had found a pipe bomb in a convenience store near a safe house, along with a lighter she guiltily stole along with the aforementioned explosive device and some provisions.

She pushed on, keeping to the shadows and away from the large crowd of infected humans that wandered the streets but killing those in her way at the same time with her pistols at point-blank range. Any time there was a large amount of common infected, there would probably be more of those mutated humans that became vastly different from the mindless zombies.

Without the large chorus of grunts and moans from the ordinary zombies, it would be easier for her ears to detect one of those so called "special infected", especially the zombie that coughed constantly, or the one that slammed survivors into the ground and tore into their poor victims with their sharp claws. The corpulent ones were easy to detect and locate if there was a reasonable amount of quiet. The 'common infected on steroids' could be distinguished with its heavy panting and easily audible grunts. Lastly, a near-death experience with a crying female sitting on the ground taught her to avoid any other of those things. After all, infected humans ignored their own kind. Human blood was so much more preferable, and a scarce commodity in their world.

Loud hacking sounds echoed from the badly damaged structures behind her, and Aelita whirled around, her heart pounding with fright. She backpedaled and swapped her dual pistols for her Assault Rifle, believing it to be more useful in dealing damage whilst facing off against these special infected. However, all she saw was the retreating form of the special infected and its glowing green trail of smoke. Although the hunting knife she had scavenged from a dead soldier provided as some relief to her, there was still a chance that the slippery tongue would slip through her defenses while her guard was let down, and strike. Loud bangs accompanied by stunning flashes of light were emitted from her M-16 as the pink-haired female fired off a few warning shots in the Smoker's direction. Whirling around and nearly tripping over a rotting body, Aelita groaned as she saw that the bridge ahead was barricaded by the military's attempts at staving off the infection.

Sitting onto the filthy ground and debating on the best course of action on her new predicament, her back lightly hit the back of a Howitzer completely covered in dirt. Loud crunching sounds echoed from the bridge accompanied by the blood thirsty roars of a certain special infected that never ceased to strike terror into the hearts of survivors, even the most experienced ones. Startled, her expression became depressed as her emerald orbs took in the hulking form of the Tank. The muscled special infected slammed its large fingers into a tanker and scaled it easily, driven by the scent of the pinkette's blood. Aelita swore that when it looked in her direction, its eyes narrowed the slightest bit, and an evil smile made its way across the Tank's deformed face. It straightened up and beat its two trunk-like arms on its massive, bare chest, roaring loudly in the anticipation of a quick, easy meal.

"Shit!" she swore, nervously backing closer towards the Howitzer as if it was her rock in the middle of a raging sea.

An idea suddenly gripped her, and she nervously glanced at the oversize cannon-like weapon. Sucking in her breath, she fired the Howitzer, and watched in anticipation as the projectile made a direct hit on the Tank. Flames erupted from the site of impact, quickly engulfing the heavy infected. The Tank roared in pain, swinging its arms and making cars fly in the pink-haired female's direction in its overwhelming rage. Though none of the cars actually made contact with the female, it managed to punch at least three vehicles perilously close to her location before succumbing to its wounds and collapsing onto the heavily damaged pavement. Nauseous odors emitting from its still flaming body wafted through the polluted air and to Aelita's nose, causing her to wrinkle it in disgust and hack loudly.

The ear-splitting howl of the horde reverberated in the air, and Aelita inwardly flinched, knowing that one against one hundred didn't have the odds in her favor. The dark forms of the dozens of zombies soon materialized into view, crawling over debris and abandoned vehicles alike. Clicking the lighter, she let the small flame light the pipe bomb's fuse before throwing the gray weapon into the masses. Taking the opportunity to dash away, she barely heard the hacking sound of the Smoker above the din created by the explosion. Her eyes narrowed and her teeth clenched almost painfully as she focused on her target, her muscles tensing in anticipation of the attacks.

Aelita leaped and spun in midair, whipping out her hunting knife to slice through the tongue as the slippery muscle shot towards her. A familiar screech reached her ears, and Aelita whirled around to face the oncoming threat. The Hunter flew towards her in a blue blur, its diseased claws extended and reaching out for the female as it reached the apex of its pounce. Beneath the hood, the teenager visibly winced as she saw the Hunter gave her a sick grin and opened its mouth to reveal razor sharp, blood covered teeth.

With no warning whatsoever, Aelita thrust the knife upward immediately before her booted feet touched the ground, just as the Hunter flew through the air to render her completely helpless. The knife cut through the infected flesh and pierced through the ribcage, piercing the aorta completely and landing dangerously close to the heart. Diseased blood showered upon the teenager, the latter wincing in disgust as the metallic scent of blood reached her nose; the pungent smell of decay and rotting flesh was already enough to make her vomit without the diseased blood gushing over her petite form and soaking it with the disgusting red liquid.

The Hunter's body continued to sail through the air towards the ground. Removing the knife from the dead zombie with a grunt, Aelita threw the blade in the direction of a common infected. The knife hit the former human dead in the eye, causing the infected female to squall horribly as blood poured from her wounds. Her sharpened nails, caked with grime and rotten flesh from her former victims, clawed at her face, desperate to remove the foreign object.

Aelita grunted as she jerked the knife from the female and stabbed it right through her heart, ending the woman's misery. Hearing an enraged common infected behind her, Aelita whipped around and threw her hunting knife before reaching for her Assault Rifle again and collapsed into a crouching position for better accuracy. The blade easily sliced through the weakened structure of the infected and nailed another infected through its stomach, causing it to bowl over backwards. Crimson liquid spurted from Aelita's victims and splattered all over the filthy street as the female mowed them down easily, moving her Assault Rifle in a sweeping motion.

Fragments of intestines flew out of the bodies, mixing with assorted pieces of brain and splinters of various bones in a vile stew. Gore splattered all over Aelita's clothing, joining the Boomer vomit and dried blood from previous fights, but the teenager paid it no mind. Springing from her crouched position, Aelita leapt over a zombie, and landed a little ways away. Yanking her blood covered knife from the struggling infected human, a violent swipe from the sharpened metal to the neck ended its life. Life blood gushed onto Aelita's face, strengthening her urge to vomit, but the teenager ignored it and continued to fire her Assault Rifle until the majority of the common infected fell to the overwhelming amount of artillery.

Flipping over the mass of bodies lying on the ground, Aelita expertly landed in a crouch several yards away from her origin. Raising her blade again, she slid under an infected screaming like a bat out of hell as it was leaping towards her. A flick of her wrist and a push of her arm, and the knife sunk into the infected flesh, drawing a long vertical gash in the former human's stomach. Squealing as if it were a wounded pig, the zombie clutched its stomach tightly as the knife exited out of its soft, yielding flesh. Blood and fragmented pieces of its heavily shredded innards oozed out of the gaps between its fingers, pouring onto the ground. It crashed to the ground unceremoniously, landing in a crumpled heap.

The Smoker hacked as it prepared to attack again from the rooftops, where it was perched, but when it peered over the rooftops again, it coughed in displeasure as the teenager was no longer where it thought she was, much to its frustration. Aelita watched the green trail of smoke following it gave away the Smoker's location from her moved position on the street. Aiming at disenchanted infected individual, Aelita emptied the remainder of her magazine into its body. Groaning as the bullets sliced through its weakened skeletal structure, it exploded into a green cloud of smoke, highlighting the dark, overcast skies above.

It soon began to rain heavily from the clouds, drenching everything with rainwater. The teenager held her bloody knife in her hands, gripping it tightly and shooting murderous glares at the oncoming onslaught of zombies. Infected humans sailed towards her, pushing and shoving one another for the chance to tear into the former Lyoko warrior and reduce her to nothing but rotting meat scraps. They would have tackled the pink-haired female to the ground and begun their feast, had not the latter turned around and began stabbing and slashing their bodies. One of them managed to have mercilessly lacerated her back with fresh wounds, and Aelita loudly screamed in pain as the claw marks drew crimson trails.

Her thin pink lips pulled back to reveal her white teeth stained with the blood of the infected humans, the teenager snarling angrily as her vision turned scarlet. Feeling a sudden influx of strength and raw, destructive anger into her body, Aelita snatched up the corpse of the Hunter with one fluid move and slammed it into the common infected, sending them flying backwards. Fighting the infected and being stressed almost to the point of snapping had finally took their toll on the young female; the results being that she had at least some muscular definitions and was a decent shot. The sound of crunching bones snapping under the force of the Aelita's strikes accompanied the small spurts of blood resulting from the aforementioned fragile bones gorily sticking out of the broken skin. Maintaining her grip on the Hunter as the infected surrounding her stumbled back from the brutal assault, Aelita held it above her head and bugled triumphantly, not caring if the rain washed more of the infected blood all over her.

The few remaining infected snarled and voiced their disapproval at the sight of their brethren being treated as a trophy, but their discontent was silenced at the female's savage roar and her enraged glares she shot each and every one of them. Growling amongst themselves in their incoherent language, they retreated into the dark recesses of France before the pinkette could shoot them to death, waiting until their numbers swelled. Their milky white eyes glared angrily at the survivor from the ruins of buildings, though they did not take any further course of action... for the moment.

The Hunter's body fell to the ground once the pinkette released her grip, its face forever frozen in surprise at the brutal assault which caused its untimely death. Panting in exhaustion, Aelita growled as the sudden realization of how far Kadic was and how many more shit-filled streets she had to cross dawned upon her. Anger took over common sense, and Aelita began swearing profusely and exclaiming profanities that she would never otherwise say in normal conditions. Aelita gave the corpses strewn around her several enraged kicks with each choice of words. Loud screeches answered her obscenities, and Aelita audibly groaned, knowing she had very well attracted the horde with her lapse of judgment.

"Bull frikking horseshit!" Aelita growled, forcefully sheathing her knife back into its worn scabbard.

Eying the sewer lid innocently lying in the middle of the street, a small grin made its way across the pink-haired female's face. Sucking in her breath, Aelita dislodged it from its hold in the asphalt with several quick, furious tugs. Slipping into the sewers and replacing the cover just in time for the horde to pour into the area, she inwardly smirked as she heard the faint sounds of their voiced disappointment.

Her joy at being able to escape soon gave way into frustration as she was forced to navigate through the cramped spaces the sewers had to offer. Despite what many people thought, the sewers were the opposite of spacious; the sewers was basically concrete structures and a network of pipes that carried human waste to a nearby river, ocean, or water treatment plant. While the odor caused by the accumulated gunk along the concrete walls normally could induce emesis, Aelita barely flinched and continued on her way, reading the markings spray painted onto the walls with her lighter. After all, living with foul smells for the last week had made her inured to most stomach-turning stenches. Plus, the fact that the sewers were marked so that the maintenance workers would know where they were comforted her; it meant that she probably would not need to spend a lot of time down there.

"Of all the shit I've had to put up with... this has got to be the worst of all of them." Aelita grumbled as she discovered that the sewers had taken her the wrong way for the third time in a row. "I'd rather face exenteration by the Hunter, asphyxiation caused by the Smoker, pukricide by the Boomer, or even go against a Tank or Witch than do this again."

Despite her initial misgivings, the sewers eventually lead her into familiar territory as the pink-haired female realized that it was the sewers/water treatment plant that she had often run through when she was younger. Even in the dim light given by her lighter, she could find her way back to the school, albeit slower than in normal lighting conditions.

Her body aching and covered in horrid smelling filth, Aelita crossed through the water, not even bothering to avoid the floating body parts that bumped into her every so often. At least some of the crap would be washed off in the water, no matter how much blood, infected corpses, or shit was mixed into it as well. What made the trip slightly easier was the fact that there weren't any infected here probably because they walked right into the flow of water and drowned due to the lack of lighting and the fact that the sewers restricted movement. Boomers wouldn't fit, in through the sewer openings, Smokers were too tall, and there was absolutely no way that Tanks could completely punch their way through the hundreds of feet of concrete just to crush her into the ground.

After what seemed like ages, Aelita finally reached the metal door separating the long corridor leading towards the sewers from Kadic's boiler room. Finding the handle was jammed, Aelita slammed her small form against the door, hoping that the action would somehow dislodge the door from its current position. After three solid minutes of doing so, however, her shoulder's protest against the violent action finally compelled the female to stop.

"Screw this" Aelita snarled, removing her M-16 from her back and firing off a magazine at the door's handle.

A well placed kick to the center of the door sent the mechanism flying into the dark interior of Kadic Academy. Reloading her Assault Rifle, the teenager finally decided it was safe to use the flashlight attached to her secondary weapon; flashlights attracted unwanted attention from the infected, after all.

Kadic Academy was not the same institution that she had remembered. While it was warm and inviting during the time she had schooled there, it now appeared eerily abandoned or overrun. Papers and spent shells were strewn over the soiled floor made sticky with unidentifiable substances. Bullet holes pierced the walls mottled with blood, the boarded-up windows were broken and served as a testament to the few infected that had slipped through the school's defenses. Mounted miniguns were positioned in strategic areas on Kadic Academy, whether it was on the rooftops or where the infected were less likely to see them before it was too late.

Sighing, Aelita turned around only to be confronted with a blinding light and a gun pressed against her stomach.

"Identify yourself" a distantly familiar voice growled, pressing the muzzle of the gun harder against her abdomen.

Aelita squinted at the newcomer, her eyes unused to the change of lighting. It was obviously a male no older than 18 years of age judging by his stance and his voice. Through the blinding illumination provided by the flashlight, she could see that he was dressed in military fatigues, though the color scheme was gray and black in order for him to blend into the grim and dismal surroundings. She also could barely make out two light-colored eyes staring at her, accompanying a hardened expression that now slackened upon recognizing his old friend, even when she was covered in all kinds of filth, the numerous cuts decorating her petite form and how she had matured into a young woman from the stressful situation she was put in.

"Oh my goodness... Aelita" he whispered, almost in disbelief, hurriedly moving the shotgun away from his female friend.  
>"Jeremie" Aelita replied happily, forgetting her current state and embracing him in a bear hug, some of the grime rubbing off onto the blond haired teenager's clothing.<br>"You've certainly changed since we last saw each other" Jeremie joked, earning himself a playful punch to his shoulder by the pinkette.  
>"Well, fighting through blood thirsty zombies day after day is enough to change anyone" Aelita retorted, her face suddenly taking on a more serious appearance. "Are the others here?" Aelita asked hopefully, frowning disappointingly when Jeremie shook his head.<br>"No," Jeremie replied. "I have not seen them since all of us were separated. The military has tried to make this school look and sound as abandoned as possible- we don't want any zombies to suspect this place as one of the last safe places for individuals to go. ...Maybe... Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd could have thought that Kadic was overrun and would have left the area or be killed by one of those... things..."

Both of them took on sullen and grave expressions as the possibilities of what might have happened to their friends rushed through their heads. Perhaps they weren't in France at all and Kadic was holding out for the pointless reason to safeguard survivors that might not even come. Aelita looked through the cracks between the boarded windows to stare at the night sky. The polluted air was covered with dark clouds, the moon's light unable to shine through them for the most part. Neither of them spoke for the longest time, the full weight of the new responsibilities they had to undertake to ensure their survival pressing upon them.

Most people would snap under this kind of pressure, rendering them into mere shells of themselves while at the same time warping their minds until it was almost completely primal. Trapped within the ruined world and rendered unable to escape, they would go crazy, and maybe commit suicide by the most gruesome way possible; a preference to being turned into the shambling zombies shuffling around outside, waiting for fresh meat to cross their path. Perhaps that it was only because of Lyoko that the former Lyoko Warriors thrived in these conditions, hardened by the endless battles of Lyoko. The zombie apocalypse considerably faded in comparison to possible nuclear destruction, facing off against a possessed William, taking down the Kolossus single handedly, or challenging XANAfied humans to battle, just to give the other members of the team more time to deactivate the activated tower on Lyoko.

Joking about the situation provided as a comic relief to their dour outlook, even if it was a little patch of sunshine otherwise surrounded by the all encompassing gloom. After all, if the few, terse jokes failed to shatter the silence in between the fights staged on Lyoko, they could always rely on Odd to palliate the situation with Kiwi in tow.

"So..." Aelita spoke, breaking the silence between them before it became too unbearable. "If we survive this... do you want to go out on a date?"  
>"Does that include Boomer hunting?"<br>"Of course!" Aelita declared, quizzically raising a pink eyebrow. "Why wouldn't it be included?"  
>"Then it's a date" Jeremie affirmed, cocking his automatic shotgun and blasting an incoming infected human that had heard them and tried to break through the window into smithereens. "... How about... we go Boomer hunting at seven, and then we have a competition on who can single handedly bring down a Tank"<br>"Sounds great to me"

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><p>Exenteration- Medial term for disembowelment.<br>Asphyxiation- Medical term for suffocation.  
>Pukricide- Puke plus the suffix -icide (to die by), thus meaning "death by (means of) vomit".<p>

All three of these terms are the theme songs (aka "Bacteria") for their respective special infected within the game, as it obviously fits their nature.

The incident with the Tank and the Howitzer actually happened to me while playing Crash Course on Single Player a few days ago. I am a proud addict of Left 4 Dead.


End file.
